PDP Campaign Derides Tinubu, Says Atiku in Head-start

•Dismisses ex-Lagos gov as rehearsing in hopeless entitlement 

Chuks Okocha in Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Presidential Campaign Council, yesterday, scorned the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, saying since campaigns kicked off, its presidential standard bearer, Atiku Abubakar, and his running mate, Ifeanyi Okowa, had gained a head start.

The. Presidential campaign council, which went further to shade the APC, however, said both Tinubu and his party were still rehearsing, in the self-conceited misconception of entitlement and power of incumbency.

In a statement by one of the spokesperson of. The PDP Presidential Campaign, Senator Dino Melaye, stated that the wide acceptability of Atiku was also becoming evidential, incontrovertible and unassailable.

Melaye explained that, “To be sure, Atiku has not only launched his campaign, he has moved from the South to the North and from the North to the South within a spate of two weeks, drawing great and enthusiastic supporters and selling his agenda to Nigerians.

“Atiku does not carry the baggage of an ethnic champion. He makes no claim to entitlement, either among his kinsmen or on the national stage. He had no inhibitions in declaring his Pan-Nigerian status in Kaduna, which some mischievous lot attempted fruitlessly to turn upside down.

“In Kaduna, the clay-footed opponents of the PDP and its flag bearers erected all obstacles, including the denial of the use of the Ahmadu Bello Stadium. When all barriers failed, they physically deployed thugs to invade the Ranchers Bees Stadium, but it was too late to use ignorant urchins to stop a moving train.”

Continuing, Melaye said, “In Benin, the capital of Edo State, a key state in the South-south, Atiku was at home, and was well-received. Excitement pervaded the atmosphere.

“He struck the right chord with the people. Atiku is a lover of culture, education and development. He gave hope to the youths, assuring them of his desire to see the youths of Nigeria becoming global citizens through the right education, innovation and enterprise.

“This was an inspiration away from the APC administrator that has kept Universities shut for about nine months. This is also a departure from the vision of Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who has a vision to sentence Nigerian youths to a life of perpetual subsistence, where their main diet will be cassava and agbado.

“While Tinubu and his confused bunch are still rehearsing their take-off, nothing has changed about APC. It’s the same way the National Executive Committee of the APC was lately organised. It’s the same way a presidential convention was poorly dragged to the dying minutes of extended time.

“It’s the same way the choice of a running mate was turned into rocket science. At the rate the APC is going, it may be requesting that its members be allowed to vote one week after the general election had been concluded! In the face of these failings, it is ridiculous for APC and Tinubu to contrive an action plan and tag it ‘Renewed Hope’.